


Over the Horizon

by twentyfourshreds



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Crying, Gen, Memories, Regret, Running Away, basically that's what it is, so much crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 10:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentyfourshreds/pseuds/twentyfourshreds
Summary: Rick's been dead for a few years.Now, it is time for Morty to follow in His steps.





	Over the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a [playlist](http://suan.fm/mix/Bk_2tSY3G) I put together to listen to while reading and thinking about this.   
> I wanted to lightly play with the idea that Morty will one day become just like Rick, while also keeping Morty as emotionally attached, for that extra punch to the gut.

The door clicked quietly as it latched behind him. The thin, sturdy plywood glossed and plain, the brass knob surprisingly cold in the warmth of the house. When he let go it still drooped slightly, a fixture on his door ever since he was eight. He didn't really remember exactly why it had happened, but he remembered how he had pulled and pulled on the knob, how Summer laughed from the other side, how he had pulled so hard with his weak little arms that he fell back, one round brass knob in his hands, never to sit perfectly on the spoke again, never to stay in one position for any amount of time. He gave a small, sad smile at the memory; hand lingering in the air just below the cool metal. He pressed his body against the door, a solid weight throughout his life, a support and a wall between the tumult of daily life and the solace of his room and himself. The weight of his decision finally hit him, the bag that was carefully laid down on the ground was now too large and too heavy for him to pick up. His feet, long foregone the grey sneakers for heavy, well-tread boots, glued to the carpet, where a faint stain just to his left foot sat. He remembered his mother spilling hot chocolate as she stumbled over the dip on the top step, when he was eleven with the flu. He was leaving all of this behind.

He took a slow shuddering breath, pushing himself off of the door to his childhood room. Ever since he was born to this very night he called this little room his, even if now it was just slightly too small. He walked away shamefully, under the cover of night. He was leaving behind his lost science experiments from when he was in last years of elementary school, the model solar system that hung on his ceiling, the rug with the periodic table of elements that was so worn and faded that the only words he could read were 'Period' and 'Elm.' He had torn down the posters of scantily clad ladies in bikinis years ago, finding that the memories from his early high school years were still tender; were still so tangible. He had left his computer, hard drive cleaned out and his web history deleted. He laughed inwardly at the memories of him frantically deleting his history every morning for the whole thirteenth year of life. 

He pulled himself out of the past and picked up the bag on the ground. It weighed a ton, but he didn't have to worry about that for too long. He began to walk down the hall passing the cracked door to his sister's room. The now-empty shell of her life, scooped out to nothing more than an unused bed and the all-to-sterile backdrop of a child who's grown to become an adult. He then passed the door to his mother's room, the gentle snores that passed through the closed door pressed yet another dejected smile to his lips. This was good. He remembered thinking that it was his father that always snored, but he soon realised that his mother, just like her father, slept noisily. He gently pressed a palm to the door, eyes growing hot as a numb sorrow pressed itself against his ribs.

'I'm sorry, mom,' he mouthed, hoping for some way that his mother could hear him. 

'I'm sorry.'

He dragged himself away from the door to his mother and down the stairs, taking the steps slowly, letting the memories wash over him as he descended. Once he reached the bottom step he shot his arm out to the coat rack and picked up the bright yellow snow jacket he was gifted for Christmas two years prior. The same jacket as when he was a teen, just better fitted, and with fewer bloodstains and singed edges. Fewer memories to keep him there. He thought it was for the better.

He silently walked through the house. Memories washed over him, filling him with the intense morose understanding that he was never going to come back. That these were his final moments in the house that was his home for the past twenty-two years of his life. He didn't even notice the tears in the darkness until his nose began to run and the trickle of salt water on his neck began to itch. He had pulled himself short of the garage door, opening the weighted slab as quietly as he could. The stale smell of oil and metals washed over him, and he flicked on the lights inside. The white fluorescent bulbs buzzed to life and he stepped within, catching the door before it slammed shut.

The garage, a once incredible mess that was compiled of mechanical structures, miscellaneous biological experiments, and half-formed ideas stagnating under a fine layer of sweat and sleepless nights was now gone. Neat stacks of papers and tools were piled on the workbenches, boxes lined the walls filled and carefully labeled, the floor was swept and mopped, and the hatch in the ground glimmered in the bright lights. He remembered cleaning it all up, his mother and sister still mourning, unwilling to even look in the direction of the garage. He had pushed it all aside, the one time he didn't feel, and he channeled it into cleaning up His mess. It took him almost a year and a half, community college becoming a distant ideal as he focused on clearing up the remnants of Him in his life. He had gone through every accessible space in the garage, even weaseling his way into a few of the locked rooms and hidden storage units of the bunker. He stared too long at a box labeled Rick's Room: Clothing and Bedding, the faded fabrics inside were musty as he lifted an off-white lab coat from the top, the smell of mothballs clinging to the cotton as if it were dirt. 

He began to fold it, making a move to put it back in the box and then thought better of it. Sentimentality winning him over: one last piece of Him to add to the massive pack on his back. He swallowed hard as he tucked the coat beneath his arm and turned to face the large garage door.

There the ship sat, shining and sturdy in the confines of the garage. He felt a strange sense of pride well up in his chest as he gazed at the ship, proud he had repaired, modified, and remodeled the whole machine. It took him a long time, beginning before He had gone, and finishing just over a year ago, a time that was spent puzzling over blueprints written in scribbled gibberish, learning on the spot and many failed attempts of rewiring. He looked down at his shoes, the same sadness gnawing at his stomach and heart, the weight of the years pressing the bag further into his shoulders, the lab coat into the tight claw of his hand. He had already made the decision, there was no going back. He broke his stillness with a step towards the ship, lurching to toss the pack into the back seat and to neatly lay the lab coat on the clean orange cushion of the passenger seat, shucking off the winter coat and placing it over the back of the chair. He smoothed the fabric, making one last check inside as he closed the door. He then turned to the workbench where a toolbox, a cooler, three guns and the portal gun sat in neat rows between the cardboard boxes labeled Rick's Garage: Bio-Weaponry Blueprints #7 and Rick's Garage: Alien Mind-Altering Substances #17.

He placed the toolbox and cooler into the foot well of the passenger side. The memory of the cooler still playing in his mind, how his fingers had turned purple trying to get that ever-ice for Him, how it was actually really useful, despite the pain it had caused him. He stowed the guns, cartridges separate, the weapons locked and powered off with one under the driver's seat, one in the dash, and one under the cushioned bench along the back wall. He stowed the portal gun on the passenger cushion, resting atop the lab coat the image caused a pang of remorse to bloat in his chest, he sighed and finally closed the passenger door for the last time. He checked the watch on his arm, biometric monitors flashing gently on the screen below the clock, he was right on time. Receiving this watch for his eighteenth birthday was the last thing he was really gifted by Him. He remembered Him quietly tossing the package into his lap as he sat mindlessly watching television. The weight of the watch on his arm was so noticeable for weeks afterward, but, although he wasn't aware then, the little machine was invaluable. 

He pulled an envelope from his back pocket, and quickly slipped from the garage. As he passed through the house the quiet was almost suffocating. He entered the dining room and placed the little white sleeve in his mother's place at the table, he lined it up neatly; and giving it one final brush of his fingers and furrow of his brow he returned to the garage.

He stood in the middle of the open space, eyes focused on the concrete below him. He felt a weight crushing his chest from the inside out. His eyes grew hot. He tried taking in another breath but it shuddered, his body jolting with it. He took short, shallow breaths, convincing himself to move.  
He pulled himself to the large garage door, opening the massive entrance with nothing more than the soft rumble of cheap metal over oiled tracks. He got into the ship and parked it in the driveway. His mother's car sitting on the side of the road from his trip to the store late that evening. He shut off the engine and walked back into the garage. The urge to cling to the counter tops and his possessions was so strong it nearly shocked him. At the same time that urge comforted him, he had pushed his emotions away for too long. For years he had just not thought about it: not thought about the loss, the pain, the guilt and the disappointment. Now, of course, it came flooding back mixing horribly with the knowledge that he was never coming back. He let out a quiet sob, wiping the tears that welled in his eyes away. It was so hard. Leaving his mom just like her father had, just up and walked out, but he knew that he was never going to see her again, not like how He had. Then there was Summer, he had told her months in advance, and she had promised not to tell their mother, but had cut off all contact.

"I'm going to be here! And-And I want this to be our last goodbye, I don't want you to visit suddenly to just say 'Hi, Summer, I've missed you I'm going to fuck off for the rest of my life now, bye, Summer!' Like... That's just not right. I want to- I want to pretend like you still live on earth, maybe not with Mom, or me, or hell even Dad, but just- just still here, ya'know?" She had cried, berating him and somehow still encouraging him. She knew she couldn't change his mind. They shared one final long hug, crying and shaking and with the last tousle of his hair he walked away from his only sister.

Remembering that last goodbye with Summer made him sob harder. He was being so selfish and stupid, but he knew he had to, he knew he needed to. He tried to calm himself down, the cool midnight air filling his hot lungs. He nodded to himself, head bobbing as he turned his back on the workbench. Walking from the garage to the outside, he pulled the garage door closed and locked it with a key from his pocket. He placed the key quietly under the bush to the right of the garage and sped to the ship. If he could walk faster to the ship he could break down inside. If he could make it there fast enough he would be able to get off world and start his journey. If he could make it into space, he could never come back.

He hopped into the ship and turned the key he had left in the ignition. He took one last look at his home and noted his mistake as another sob pushed his head forwards into the steering wheel. He gripped the wheel, forcing himself upright staring at the windshield and not the house behind it. He lifted the ship into the air, pushing buttons and checking monitors through blurry vision. He looked down at his house. It was so far away. 

He punched the auto-pilot screen as he curled up in the seat, sobs heaving in his chest. He pulled at his hair and screwed his face up. The pain in his chest grew as the ship ascended, rising through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere. He gave a hoarse wail and threw his back against the orange driver's seat in frustration. The remorse feeling as if it were stuck inside his body, like sobbing and crying wasn't enough for the pain to escape. He scrambled for his phone and shakily opened it up. He accessed the phone book and hoped that he pressed the right name as it dialed. He tried to calm himself down and nearly missed what the dial reader said.

"--se leave your message after the tone." The line beeped and he took deep shuddering breaths.

"Summer," He began, voice cracking, "Summer, I'm... It's happening. I know you said you didn't want anything like this but, I can't... I can't... I just can't Summer," He sobbed, biting his knuckles, "Take care of Mom for me, I know you're going to hate me for this, I know you do. Just know that I'm gonna miss you, Summer, and I love you. Take care of yourself, please Sum--"

The time ran out. He knew that it was for the best, and he panted sitting back in the seat, arms tightly wrapped around his knees. He rocked a little in the chair trying to calm down. He was floating well away from the Earth. He told himself that there was no going back, that he couldn't, not after all of this. Eventually, with tired, stinging eyes he straightened his legs and sat forwards, taking the ship out of auto-pilot and banking slowly to the left. He looked out over the sea of darkness ahead of him, wondering to himself if this was how He had felt all those long years ago. After his mother had been born, after He had run off to hide from everyone. That vast, suffocating darkness that enveloped the ship as he cruised along. Passing the edge of the solar system and into free space, a silent resolution washed over him: he was never going back. It was in someway comforting. 

He bowed his head speaking lowly, "Ship?"

"Yes?" The voice queried, mechanical, but still smoother than most automated machines.

"Where's the nearest diner?" He sighed.

"20 light years to the situational left." It replied blandly.

"Good, take me there please, I'm going to try to catch some shut-eye." He straightened his back and pressed it against the chair, head lolling against the cushion. The system's settings whirred as a tint passed over the glass dome above him and his seat reclined. The auto-pilot light on the dash lit up.

The voice, now quieter, replied, "Okay, heading there now, Mortimer." He then felt the ship position itself to the quickest route and slowly make its way to some space diner, probably situated on a meteor in the middle of nowhere.

As he laid there he understood, he was exactly like Him, and he accepted it. There was no going back. There was never the choice of going back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
